Accessibility & Universal Design

Senior Instructional Designer · 2018

Helped establish accessibility standards, resources, and testing practices that enabled learning professionals to design more inclusive learning experiences.

My Role

Partnered with another instructional designer and our accessibility/testing team to research accessibility requirements, develop practical standards and resources, and test learning materials using assistive technology and keyboard-only navigation. I also helped introduce the guidance to more than 100 learning professionals across the organization.

The Challenge

The Corporate Learning Solutions team developed compliance learning used across the organization, but there was not yet a consistent set of accessibility standards and testing practices for learning content.

We needed practical guidance that instructional designers and other learning professionals could apply when creating materials, along with a way to test whether learning experiences were usable by employees with disabilities.

The Solution

Working with another instructional designer, I researched accessibility practices and partnered with an accessibility and testing team in Denver to better understand how employees using assistive technology experienced our learning.

We helped develop accessibility standards, recommended practices, design guidelines, and testing checklists covering areas such as fonts, color, headings, document design, and eLearning.

The standards became required within our Corporate Learning Solutions team, while the resources and recommended practices were also shared with learning teams across the organization.

Testing the Learner Experience

We worked directly with the accessibility and testing team to experience the learning from different perspectives. Testing included using JAWS screen-reading software, navigating content using only the keyboard, and using eye shades to simulate the experience of a learner who could not rely on visual information.

That hands-on testing helped us identify barriers that were easy to miss during a typical content review and reinforced the importance of considering accessibility throughout the design and development process—not only at the end.

Sharing the Standards

To support adoption, we created practical resources that learning professionals could use during design, development, and review. We also conducted virtual sessions to introduce the standards and resources to more than 100 L&D professionals across the organization.

The work helped make accessibility a more visible and practical part of the learning-development process and contributed to broader conversations about Universal Design across the organization.

Outcome

The initiative established a more consistent approach to accessibility within Corporate Learning Solutions and gave learning professionals practical guidance they could apply when designing and reviewing content.

The work was well received and helped increase awareness of accessibility across the learning organization. Accessibility efforts continued to expand over time, including the development of additional resources and broader Universal Design governance.

This experience also changed how I approach instructional design. Accessibility became something I consider from the beginning of a project—rather than something to check after the learning has already been developed.